Posts
PART I
Let me tell you the story of Kristy, the girl who called me "mom". This is a painful story, but it is a story that must be told because it is a story that needs to be heard.
I can't tell you the story in one sitting--it's too complicated for that. But stick with me and you will get the basic story. And as you follow this story, I hope you will write me your thoughts. I would like to hear what you have to say. I would like to hear your opinions and your suggestions. If nothing else, I would like to hear your outrage.
Kristy would have been thirty-one this September. That she lived even this long is testament to the power of the spirit, the creative intelligence of the mind and what surely must have been her deeply innate will to survive. I say this because the abuse rained upon her in her lifetime would have killed most people a thousand times over; and the repeated failure of the justice system to protect her would have crushed most of our spirits long before we even hit puberty. Not so for Kristy.
At least not before now.
The middle of six children, at the age of four, Kristy—along with at least four and possibly all five of her siblings—was adopted into the home of The pastor and his wife. Kristy’s life intersected with mine nine years later when she was an out of control, over-sexualized, clearly disturbed but incredibly enchanting thirteen-year-old and I was the school psychologist in her middle school. As you read this story, I imagine you, like me, will find it hard to believe that there is not some Universal or heavenly hand involved in the intersecting of our lives.
Kristy, who was not called Kristy back then, and I easily established a powerful working relationship. Her behavior was getting under control and her relationship with me was quickly building into a trusting and effective partnership. Oddly enough, the stronger Kristy got, the stranger her parents appeared. Their behavior was so odd and disconcerting in fact, that I talked with both my principal and the district superintendent about some concerns I had for my own safety. The pastor and his wife subtly, but clearly, expressed a nearly palpable hatred toward me, which no one understood (least of all me) since Kristy was making progress and adored me.I wanted it on the record that I felt inexplicably threatened--that is how terribly strange their behavior was toward me.
The pastor and his wife told school personnel that they had rescued these children from a satanic cult which had ritualistically, sexually abused all of them and this is why they were so disturbed, especially Kristy. The oldest boy was so damaged--we were told--that he was institutionalized, where he would probably remain for the rest of his life. The good pastor and his wife placed all the children in counseling, but oddly enough, each with a different clinician and each given a clear directive that we were not to communicate with one another. Ever. Neither the pastor nor his wife would, no matter which clinician requested it, sign a release of information so that we could confer with one another about these very complicated children.
A not terribly long period of time passed and the pastor and his wife told the building principal that I looked like the birth mother of these children and was triggering Kristy who, though greatly improving in her school behavior, would get home and go completely and ballistically out of control.For this reason, they explained to the principal, they were pulling Kristy out of my counseling program and would no longer allow her to spend time in my office or talk with me.
Kristy had been instructed not to talk with me at all in school, and she was an obedient, but resourceful child so she started writing me letters and slipping them under my door. I saw no reason not to respond in kind and so although she never came to my office again and we never again had direct contact, we did exchange several letters. Sadly,the pastor and his wife discovered the letters and they pulled her out of school entirely.
“She’s too disturbed,” they told the principal. “We are going to home school her.”
For two and a half years, I never heard mention of Kristy, though I often worried for her. I had been quite sure she was getting very close to the point of disclosing important information to me when she was whisked away and as far as anyone could ascertain, hidden from view. It was a small town, not even 3000 people, yet she was never seen anywhere.
Then, one evening more than two years later (1994), I was called into the police station interrogation room and informed that this girl, Kristy, had made an accusation that I had sexually molested her in my office when we were working together. Although my head reeled and my stomach rebelled with flashing images of my ruined career, all I could think of then (and later) was, "Dear God, what have they been doing to her all this time to make her say such a terrible, terrible thing?"
TBC. Read of the letter Kristy wrote me, two years after the accusation, when she turned eighteen, explaining it and asking for my forgiveness.
Showing posts with label sexual abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexual abuse. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
When Justice Fails the Children, PART II, Kristy's Story by Debra Sanders
Part II
Kristy's Story: When Justice Fails the Children
The investigation into the allegation took place over a three month period of time, during which I agonized over what surely must be happening to Kristy, secreted away in her parent’s home, and stressed over what was happening to me as the investigation lingered on.
I am eternally grateful to the detectives and police involved. They could have leaked information to the press and innocent or not, my career would have been history. They did not do this however, and although I was cautioned to discuss the accusation with absolutely no one (except an attorney), life went on in a sort of normal fashion. True, I was not sleeping well, weight was dropping off rapidly and every time I heard a siren, my knees would buckle in anticipation that I was minutes away from an imminent arrest. But I continued to work, enjoy friends and family and carry on with daily chores, while always wondering to myself, “What has been happening to that girl that would result in her making such an accusation?”
I had secured a criminal attorney and because Kristy had identified scarring on my breasts, I went to a plastic surgeon, was photographed and a letter was written attesting to the fact that I had no scarring or other marks. She had also said that I made two boys watch, and she apparently described the boys in detail to the investigators. When these things proved false, the case was dismissed and closed. I always figured that Kristy’s details were her small way of protecting me.
The police never provided any details of their investigation to me. I did not know how they investigated, what they uncovered or what they thought. All I could hope was that the investigation would somehow uncover the abuse I had always been sure was being perpetrated in the home and that something good would come of the whole ordeal for Kristy. But I never knew one way or the other.
In 1996, my father was diagnosed with cancer and I found myself flying between his home and mine as I helped him navigate the terrain of chemotherapy and radiation. I was no longer working for the school district, at that time I had my own intervention practice, so I would go to my dad’s for two weeks, return home and work for three and make the return trip to Colorado while my dad received ever increasing amounts of the toxic chemicals and burning rays we were hoping would save his life.
It had been two years since the case had closed and never once during those years did I hear about or see Kristy. I remember saying to a friend, “I swear to God, one day when that girl is about thirty, she will track me down and tell me the story.”
Kristy didn’t wait until she was thirty to contact me—she waited until she was eighteen and out of the home in a psychiatric hospital, where her pregnancy was revealed.
Her letter arrived while I was at my dad’s, It was dated 10/31/96 and in part, here is what it said:
“Dear Ms. Sanders, I hope you read this and will forgive me in the end....there's times I wish I would of died instead of hurting you. When my parents told me to say that about you, I never thought I would but they had a lot of control...Well daddy kept up raping me and now I'm pregnant....I no longer live at home so they have no control over me anymore... I wish I could make things better for you..."
My heart ached to read those words. Did they pressure her all that time to make such an accusation? What transpired in that home in the four years since I had last seen her? What would become of this child? What would become of this child that was going to give birth to a child? I shuddered to imagine answers to those questions.
I wrote Kristy back a very loving letter, although I did not ask any of these questions. I wanted to communicate to her that I never, ever blamed her; never for a moment had believed she had made the accusation for any reason other than she was forced to; and that I was never, ever angry with her. I wanted her to know I cared about her, believed in her and that whatever had gone on in those intervening years, they were in her history now and I believed in her ability to move forward, to survive and to heal. But I did not, at that time, want to engage in an ongoing letter writing relationship and so, I did not put a return address on the envelope, knowing it would be postmarked Colorado.
TBC. Read and find out how Kristy found me--after looking for twelve years--and what I learned about the truth of her life as a child, a teenager and a young adult.
Kristy's Story: When Justice Fails the Children
The investigation into the allegation took place over a three month period of time, during which I agonized over what surely must be happening to Kristy, secreted away in her parent’s home, and stressed over what was happening to me as the investigation lingered on.
I am eternally grateful to the detectives and police involved. They could have leaked information to the press and innocent or not, my career would have been history. They did not do this however, and although I was cautioned to discuss the accusation with absolutely no one (except an attorney), life went on in a sort of normal fashion. True, I was not sleeping well, weight was dropping off rapidly and every time I heard a siren, my knees would buckle in anticipation that I was minutes away from an imminent arrest. But I continued to work, enjoy friends and family and carry on with daily chores, while always wondering to myself, “What has been happening to that girl that would result in her making such an accusation?”
I had secured a criminal attorney and because Kristy had identified scarring on my breasts, I went to a plastic surgeon, was photographed and a letter was written attesting to the fact that I had no scarring or other marks. She had also said that I made two boys watch, and she apparently described the boys in detail to the investigators. When these things proved false, the case was dismissed and closed. I always figured that Kristy’s details were her small way of protecting me.
The police never provided any details of their investigation to me. I did not know how they investigated, what they uncovered or what they thought. All I could hope was that the investigation would somehow uncover the abuse I had always been sure was being perpetrated in the home and that something good would come of the whole ordeal for Kristy. But I never knew one way or the other.
In 1996, my father was diagnosed with cancer and I found myself flying between his home and mine as I helped him navigate the terrain of chemotherapy and radiation. I was no longer working for the school district, at that time I had my own intervention practice, so I would go to my dad’s for two weeks, return home and work for three and make the return trip to Colorado while my dad received ever increasing amounts of the toxic chemicals and burning rays we were hoping would save his life.
It had been two years since the case had closed and never once during those years did I hear about or see Kristy. I remember saying to a friend, “I swear to God, one day when that girl is about thirty, she will track me down and tell me the story.”
Kristy didn’t wait until she was thirty to contact me—she waited until she was eighteen and out of the home in a psychiatric hospital, where her pregnancy was revealed.
Her letter arrived while I was at my dad’s, It was dated 10/31/96 and in part, here is what it said:
“Dear Ms. Sanders, I hope you read this and will forgive me in the end....there's times I wish I would of died instead of hurting you. When my parents told me to say that about you, I never thought I would but they had a lot of control...Well daddy kept up raping me and now I'm pregnant....I no longer live at home so they have no control over me anymore... I wish I could make things better for you..."
My heart ached to read those words. Did they pressure her all that time to make such an accusation? What transpired in that home in the four years since I had last seen her? What would become of this child? What would become of this child that was going to give birth to a child? I shuddered to imagine answers to those questions.
I wrote Kristy back a very loving letter, although I did not ask any of these questions. I wanted to communicate to her that I never, ever blamed her; never for a moment had believed she had made the accusation for any reason other than she was forced to; and that I was never, ever angry with her. I wanted her to know I cared about her, believed in her and that whatever had gone on in those intervening years, they were in her history now and I believed in her ability to move forward, to survive and to heal. But I did not, at that time, want to engage in an ongoing letter writing relationship and so, I did not put a return address on the envelope, knowing it would be postmarked Colorado.
TBC. Read and find out how Kristy found me--after looking for twelve years--and what I learned about the truth of her life as a child, a teenager and a young adult.
Monday, June 15, 2009
When Justice Fails the Children: PART III, Kristy's story by Debra Sanders
Part III:When Justice Fails the Children
Kristy's Story by Debra Sanders
It had been a long time since I had told the story of Kristy and of her impact on me personally as well as professionally. Only when someone was involved in my life in a very intimate way did I find myself talking of those years—of my anguish when Kristy was hidden away, my fear for what was happening behind the closed doors of her house and of the incredible sense of powerlessness I felt at not being able to do anything to help her when every fiber in me screamed that I, and the system, were failing her. Only when someone had entered into the most sacred and trusting of relationships with me, did I talk about Kristy or reveal the extreme shock and anxiety that came with being investigated for the very crime I railed against on behalf of the children I saw every day.
And only once did I ever tell the story publicly. Though I hadn’t planned to reveal my experience with Kristy, I found myself telling my story of being investigated to an audience of over three hundred teachers who were attending an inservice I was giving on the teacher’s role and responsibilities with suspected child abuse cases. There had been a comment from a participant regarding the fact that as teachers and educators we really shouldn’t be hugging children anymore and I found myself telling the story of being investigated, of the fear and the anxiety it caused and of my concern throughout the entire ordeal that there was a girl being abused behind closed doors and I was helpless to do anything to help her. The audience was spell bound…riveted into silence by my descriptions of this incredibly bright, sparkling and yet damaged child. I distinctly remember ending with this:
“I tell you this story, the first time I have ever told it publicly, for a reason. Two reasons actually. First, I want you to know that this sort of thing could happen to you…it happened to me and yes, it could happen to you. But secondly, and more importantly, I tell it because I want you to know I still hug children in school and I always will. Children are affectionate by nature and they hug those that they love. If we are doing our jobs as we should be, then our students often associate their love of learning with us. And often the most vulnerable children love us simply because we are kind to them, because we do not abuse them. And they hug us, sometimes they even cling to us.
I, for one, will always return that hug and I will continue to place my hand on a child’s shoulder if it is appropriate to do so for reasons of control or gaining a child’s attention. And if a young child takes my hand on the playground, I will happily let that little hand rest inside of mine. I will never let the fear of a false accusation interfere with my providing treatment, education or kindness to a child and especially for those of you who work with elementary aged children; hugs are one of the ways that children communicate.
That said, I will tell you that I do some things differently now, and I take precautions and preventative steps that I would have never thought to take prior to this happening to me. For one, I will never again agree to work in an office that does not have a window in the door, nor will I cover the window if there is one. I will make sure that if I am seeing a child alone that the time spent together is well documented; and if I have a particularly high risk student like this again, I might consider videotaping all the sessions. I would advise that as teachers you think about what precautions you can take as well, but I urge you to please, not make one of them the removal of physical affection to the children under our care. We didn’t enter into our jobs in education only to educate the minds of our students, but to embrace all aspects of them and to help them learn to trust in and navigate their way through the world. Sometimes, more than any lesson, conversation or lecture, a hug is the most powerful tool we have to give.”
And indeed, for the next decade (plus) of my career, I continued to give and receive hugs from students without hesitation and without regret. I never told the story publicly again, and as I said, though Kristy remained actively alive in my thoughts, I rarely spoke of her, though I was frequently known to tell many funny and tender stories of my many other students over the years (without violating confidentiality of course).
It had been years since I had told the story of Kristy either privately or publicly, but for some reason last summer, I told the story to Merrilyne—the one who calls me OM or OMmie, for Other Mother. I don’t even remember right now what prompted me to tell it, but I did—it was the night before she left to head back to graduate school in Montana.
To my utter astonishment, two days later, the following email shows up in my mailbox:
"I realize you might not want to have any contact with me, but I just wanted to write and thank you for all the help you gave me. I miss you. Love, Kristy"
To say I was stunned is a significant understatement. I was absolutely blown away. I mean, how strange is that timing? I speak of her for the first time in probably ten years and within 48 hours I have an email from her. Not write her back? Unthinkable. Of course I wrote her back.
And thus began what grew into one of the most remarkable, purest, most incredible relationships I am ever likely to have on this earth.And indeed, when she wrote this time, Kristy was about to turn thirty and she wanted to tell me the rest of the story.
TBC. Read on to find out some of the things Kristy told me. Of the torture she endured in order not to make that accusation, the child she became pregnant with and was forced to "throw in a landfill," and the multiple personalities she developed to cope with such extreme abuse.
Kristy's Story by Debra Sanders
It had been a long time since I had told the story of Kristy and of her impact on me personally as well as professionally. Only when someone was involved in my life in a very intimate way did I find myself talking of those years—of my anguish when Kristy was hidden away, my fear for what was happening behind the closed doors of her house and of the incredible sense of powerlessness I felt at not being able to do anything to help her when every fiber in me screamed that I, and the system, were failing her. Only when someone had entered into the most sacred and trusting of relationships with me, did I talk about Kristy or reveal the extreme shock and anxiety that came with being investigated for the very crime I railed against on behalf of the children I saw every day.
And only once did I ever tell the story publicly. Though I hadn’t planned to reveal my experience with Kristy, I found myself telling my story of being investigated to an audience of over three hundred teachers who were attending an inservice I was giving on the teacher’s role and responsibilities with suspected child abuse cases. There had been a comment from a participant regarding the fact that as teachers and educators we really shouldn’t be hugging children anymore and I found myself telling the story of being investigated, of the fear and the anxiety it caused and of my concern throughout the entire ordeal that there was a girl being abused behind closed doors and I was helpless to do anything to help her. The audience was spell bound…riveted into silence by my descriptions of this incredibly bright, sparkling and yet damaged child. I distinctly remember ending with this:
“I tell you this story, the first time I have ever told it publicly, for a reason. Two reasons actually. First, I want you to know that this sort of thing could happen to you…it happened to me and yes, it could happen to you. But secondly, and more importantly, I tell it because I want you to know I still hug children in school and I always will. Children are affectionate by nature and they hug those that they love. If we are doing our jobs as we should be, then our students often associate their love of learning with us. And often the most vulnerable children love us simply because we are kind to them, because we do not abuse them. And they hug us, sometimes they even cling to us.
I, for one, will always return that hug and I will continue to place my hand on a child’s shoulder if it is appropriate to do so for reasons of control or gaining a child’s attention. And if a young child takes my hand on the playground, I will happily let that little hand rest inside of mine. I will never let the fear of a false accusation interfere with my providing treatment, education or kindness to a child and especially for those of you who work with elementary aged children; hugs are one of the ways that children communicate.
That said, I will tell you that I do some things differently now, and I take precautions and preventative steps that I would have never thought to take prior to this happening to me. For one, I will never again agree to work in an office that does not have a window in the door, nor will I cover the window if there is one. I will make sure that if I am seeing a child alone that the time spent together is well documented; and if I have a particularly high risk student like this again, I might consider videotaping all the sessions. I would advise that as teachers you think about what precautions you can take as well, but I urge you to please, not make one of them the removal of physical affection to the children under our care. We didn’t enter into our jobs in education only to educate the minds of our students, but to embrace all aspects of them and to help them learn to trust in and navigate their way through the world. Sometimes, more than any lesson, conversation or lecture, a hug is the most powerful tool we have to give.”
And indeed, for the next decade (plus) of my career, I continued to give and receive hugs from students without hesitation and without regret. I never told the story publicly again, and as I said, though Kristy remained actively alive in my thoughts, I rarely spoke of her, though I was frequently known to tell many funny and tender stories of my many other students over the years (without violating confidentiality of course).
It had been years since I had told the story of Kristy either privately or publicly, but for some reason last summer, I told the story to Merrilyne—the one who calls me OM or OMmie, for Other Mother. I don’t even remember right now what prompted me to tell it, but I did—it was the night before she left to head back to graduate school in Montana.
To my utter astonishment, two days later, the following email shows up in my mailbox:
"I realize you might not want to have any contact with me, but I just wanted to write and thank you for all the help you gave me. I miss you. Love, Kristy"
To say I was stunned is a significant understatement. I was absolutely blown away. I mean, how strange is that timing? I speak of her for the first time in probably ten years and within 48 hours I have an email from her. Not write her back? Unthinkable. Of course I wrote her back.
And thus began what grew into one of the most remarkable, purest, most incredible relationships I am ever likely to have on this earth.And indeed, when she wrote this time, Kristy was about to turn thirty and she wanted to tell me the rest of the story.
TBC. Read on to find out some of the things Kristy told me. Of the torture she endured in order not to make that accusation, the child she became pregnant with and was forced to "throw in a landfill," and the multiple personalities she developed to cope with such extreme abuse.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
When Justice Fails the Children: PART IV, Kristy's story by Debra Sanders
When Justice Fails the Children: Kristy’s story
Part IV
At the time that I received Kristy’s first email, I had not been a practicing educational psychologist for several years. Officially, “retired” due to the head injury and its ongoing ramifications, the final version of Panache was just heading into print, with a scheduled release date of November 18, 2008. My world had become a quiet one, with pecked out words as my companions and the daunting task of having to learn the business end of writing a book, despite the fact that remembering any new information seemed a monumental,and quite possibly impossible, task.
About a week before I heard from Kristy, my website went up and although there are many Debra Sanders out there, this time when Kristy performed what I was to learn was her ongoing search for me, the http://debrasanders.com website was the first to pop up on Google. Clicking on the link, the first thing Kristy saw was my picture and she realized, “Oh my God, I found her. I really, really found her.”
And so, through the contact me box on my website, Kristy sent that initial communication and at 3:17 in the afternoon on August 24,2008 I responded with this:
"Kristy, all I can say is that for the first time in several years, I spoke about you two nights ago...That you would out write me out of the blue less than 48 hours later, is simply astounding to me. Please write and tell me how you are, where you are.
Debra
Kristy’s response, composed as rapidly as I had written mine, told me she was living in XXX, having moved there from XXX a few months prior. "The hardest part of living there", she said, was that she was "in a very rural area and there were no therapists who specialized in dissociative disorders". She went on to say, “I still have a LOT of problems cause of the abuse. I am diagnosed with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and I have 11 different parts.” Kristy went on to explain that in the last state in which she had lived, she had an excellent therapist and had been functioning well enough to hold down two part time jobs—one at Wal-Mart, the other as an aide in a head and spinal rehabilitation center.
I found it almost as surprising that she had been working in the area of head injuries as I found the simple reality of having been contacted by her.
As is common when two people reconnect with an interim of fifteen years between contacts, there was an initial flurry of emails, with Kristy filling me in on some basic aspects of her life. She did not know what state her parents were in, refused to refer to them by name, but rather simply called them the “A**holes;” and she had gotten her GED at nineteen. “How I did it I I have no clue since I left *** middle I never did any school after that. During that time the abuse got worse since there was no school to escape to and that's when K.left being the core part.”
Kristy went on to explain that no therapist had ever been able to help her integrate (merge her independent parts) because K. had not resurfaced since disappearing fifteen years earlier. One of the reasons they had been looking for me for so long, Kristy explained, is that she thought maybe K would emerge in order to talk to me and if they could stabilize their mental health, she was thinking about prosecuting her parents for the abuse she had endured.
“I told K.I found you since she mentoned you a lot when we were younger and I knew you too since I watched her but she seemed scarred maybe you and her can work stuff out. But its up to you.
I want to get her your book do you think that's a good idea?”
Almost immediately, I received an email from K:
“Ms Sanders its K. are you mad at me for being a bad girl? i sorry i was bad when you knew me. i only did what daddy an mommy told me to do. They were so bad to me i sorry i didn't tell you what they all did to me i wanted to but i was afraid to i knew it would never stop. i miss your letters you wrote me in school even though mommy always found them i tryed to hide them but when you have to strip as soon as you get home she'd find them. i hope you dont mind i told kristy about you. i dont want to be out in this world anymore i like being safe inside. you will like kristy shes not like me shes brave. after i left school daddy moved into my room and he became my husban he told me noone would ever protect me so i better not tell another person. mommy became meaner to and she started hurting me too. i cryed for you when they were not around which was very seldom and then id go inside and cry to kristy i couldnt keep doing it so kristy took over. i wanted you to save me but i knew you never would why would you when i was so bad. kristy told me she found you and it scared me cause how could you still like me after what i did. i protected mommy and daddy instead of you and you never hurt me they did. did you ever know how bad it was for me i remember you tryed to get me to tell you before mommy got in the way then you tryed to get me to write it to you. i couldnt i hope you know why. although i wanted to so bad i dreamed of telling you and you saving me but id wake up with daddy having sex with me so i knew i could never tell. im going to go back inside please dont tell mommy and daddy i wrote to you”
I received this email at noon, August 25, 2008—not quite twenty-four hours after the first contact.
OMG, I thought. Holy, holy shit. Is this for real? Clearly, I need to establish parameters.
Whoa….wow.
Now my head was really spinning.
TBC. Read on to find out what else K and Kristy wrote and how I established a non-therapeutic relationship with her, while wrestling in my head with the ethics of continuing written correspondence.
Part IV
At the time that I received Kristy’s first email, I had not been a practicing educational psychologist for several years. Officially, “retired” due to the head injury and its ongoing ramifications, the final version of Panache was just heading into print, with a scheduled release date of November 18, 2008. My world had become a quiet one, with pecked out words as my companions and the daunting task of having to learn the business end of writing a book, despite the fact that remembering any new information seemed a monumental,and quite possibly impossible, task.
About a week before I heard from Kristy, my website went up and although there are many Debra Sanders out there, this time when Kristy performed what I was to learn was her ongoing search for me, the http://debrasanders.com website was the first to pop up on Google. Clicking on the link, the first thing Kristy saw was my picture and she realized, “Oh my God, I found her. I really, really found her.”
And so, through the contact me box on my website, Kristy sent that initial communication and at 3:17 in the afternoon on August 24,2008 I responded with this:
"Kristy, all I can say is that for the first time in several years, I spoke about you two nights ago...That you would out write me out of the blue less than 48 hours later, is simply astounding to me. Please write and tell me how you are, where you are.
Debra
Kristy’s response, composed as rapidly as I had written mine, told me she was living in XXX, having moved there from XXX a few months prior. "The hardest part of living there", she said, was that she was "in a very rural area and there were no therapists who specialized in dissociative disorders". She went on to say, “I still have a LOT of problems cause of the abuse. I am diagnosed with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and I have 11 different parts.” Kristy went on to explain that in the last state in which she had lived, she had an excellent therapist and had been functioning well enough to hold down two part time jobs—one at Wal-Mart, the other as an aide in a head and spinal rehabilitation center.
I found it almost as surprising that she had been working in the area of head injuries as I found the simple reality of having been contacted by her.
As is common when two people reconnect with an interim of fifteen years between contacts, there was an initial flurry of emails, with Kristy filling me in on some basic aspects of her life. She did not know what state her parents were in, refused to refer to them by name, but rather simply called them the “A**holes;” and she had gotten her GED at nineteen. “How I did it I I have no clue since I left *** middle I never did any school after that. During that time the abuse got worse since there was no school to escape to and that's when K.left being the core part.”
Kristy went on to explain that no therapist had ever been able to help her integrate (merge her independent parts) because K. had not resurfaced since disappearing fifteen years earlier. One of the reasons they had been looking for me for so long, Kristy explained, is that she thought maybe K would emerge in order to talk to me and if they could stabilize their mental health, she was thinking about prosecuting her parents for the abuse she had endured.
“I told K.I found you since she mentoned you a lot when we were younger and I knew you too since I watched her but she seemed scarred maybe you and her can work stuff out. But its up to you.
I want to get her your book do you think that's a good idea?”
Almost immediately, I received an email from K:
“Ms Sanders its K. are you mad at me for being a bad girl? i sorry i was bad when you knew me. i only did what daddy an mommy told me to do. They were so bad to me i sorry i didn't tell you what they all did to me i wanted to but i was afraid to i knew it would never stop. i miss your letters you wrote me in school even though mommy always found them i tryed to hide them but when you have to strip as soon as you get home she'd find them. i hope you dont mind i told kristy about you. i dont want to be out in this world anymore i like being safe inside. you will like kristy shes not like me shes brave. after i left school daddy moved into my room and he became my husban he told me noone would ever protect me so i better not tell another person. mommy became meaner to and she started hurting me too. i cryed for you when they were not around which was very seldom and then id go inside and cry to kristy i couldnt keep doing it so kristy took over. i wanted you to save me but i knew you never would why would you when i was so bad. kristy told me she found you and it scared me cause how could you still like me after what i did. i protected mommy and daddy instead of you and you never hurt me they did. did you ever know how bad it was for me i remember you tryed to get me to tell you before mommy got in the way then you tryed to get me to write it to you. i couldnt i hope you know why. although i wanted to so bad i dreamed of telling you and you saving me but id wake up with daddy having sex with me so i knew i could never tell. im going to go back inside please dont tell mommy and daddy i wrote to you”
I received this email at noon, August 25, 2008—not quite twenty-four hours after the first contact.
OMG, I thought. Holy, holy shit. Is this for real? Clearly, I need to establish parameters.
Whoa….wow.
Now my head was really spinning.
TBC. Read on to find out what else K and Kristy wrote and how I established a non-therapeutic relationship with her, while wrestling in my head with the ethics of continuing written correspondence.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Kristy's Story, continuing by Debra Sanders
Part VI will be posted tomorrow. I am sorry that I have gone two days without continuing Kristy's story. You know, despite my absolute commitment to telling this story--for her, for others like her--this is a tough, tough story to tell...in so many ways--not the least being that I am rereading our emails and Instant Messages in order to get things in sequence properly and in order to choose a few to share with you. I want you to feel Kristy's spirit and her resiliency--her indomitable hope that despite incredible horrors,she could believe in, and find, mother love.
Be patient with me. I will try to post every day, every other day without fail...but obviously there are going to be those days when the best way I can cope with her death is not to write about it at all, but to spend 10 hours hauling bricks and rocks and pulling weeds and spending my time on my knees in my garden and breathing in the scents of lavender and lemon balm, tomatoes and basil, mint and thyme. In those moments, my heart is not quite so heavy....
Tomorrow I will write.
Be patient with me. I will try to post every day, every other day without fail...but obviously there are going to be those days when the best way I can cope with her death is not to write about it at all, but to spend 10 hours hauling bricks and rocks and pulling weeds and spending my time on my knees in my garden and breathing in the scents of lavender and lemon balm, tomatoes and basil, mint and thyme. In those moments, my heart is not quite so heavy....
Tomorrow I will write.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
When Justice Fails the Children: PART VI Kristy's story by Debra Sanders
Part VI: When Justice Fails the Children-Kristy’s Story
The emails continued to fly back and forth with a kind of frenetic intensity and within a week’s time nearly a hundred emails had been exchanged. K had so many questions for me: Did I still live in Alaska? Did I smoke? Did I have others that lived inside of me the way they do? Did I remember Ms. M, one of her favorite teachers? Did I know how old she was? The questions came in a flurry, as I suppose they would from a person who woke up to discover that fifteen years had passed in spite of the fact that to them, it had only been a few days.
K wanted to know if I still worked in schools; was I married, was it bad for her to be mad at her parents and was I scared of them like she was scared of them. She wanted to know if I was aware that her parents wanted to hurt me and did I have my own mommy and daddy and were they nice. And then on August 28, she writes that Kristy had showed her my website and that she does not “like big dogs daddy made one have sex with me now I scared of them.” She ended this particular email telling me she felt kind of weird and wondered, “am I asking to many questions well I better stop I love you in a good way K.”
The lack of punctuation and immature spelling came to be a trademark “K” characteristic and although Kristy did not use much punctuation (specifically, she never inserted question marks), she did write on a much higher level than K was writing and in a very different "voice."
If my head wasn’t spinning from the residual effects of the accident, it would have been spinning from the volume, intensity and content of these emails. I was grateful that I had gotten the sanction and support of her social worker, and wanted to make sure that nothing I said or mentioned would be in conflict with whatever therapy she was receiving. I was shocked and sickened by the information provided and in my worst nightmares had not imagined abuse of this magnitude. I did not want to express my outrage in a way that would trigger her or cause a defensive reaction, but I could not just ignore the information given to me.
Is it possible that such atrocities truly exist in this world…that people could be so cruel…so sick, so intentionally destructive of a child’s life? It was almost more than I could wrap my mind around and yet the context in which things were said sounded real,--not imagined and not made up. There was the ring of truth to the content of those emails, whether they were written by the nearly thirty year old Kristy or by K—who although was supposedly fourteen, really came across more like a six or seven year old in terms of her thinking and “speaking” abilities.
Quickly I found myself getting the stress-related headaches so common since the accident—the ones which came when my brain was simply overloaded with too much information, too much stimulation. The ones that produce a brain freeze that could shut me down without warning and send me into narcoleptic sleeping bouts that might last anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
Kristy, I discovered, was extremely sensitive to and concerned about me overtaxing my brain. I was enormously impressed by and fascinated by her own nurturing approach, not just to K and the “Littles” (as I was to learn she referred to the younger others), but to me as well. In an early email I had mentioned,
“I am struggling with a nasty headache today...partially from spending so much time on the computer the last few days, partially because that(as you probably know from working at the clinic) is just a function of a head injury. I always have to be careful with how much I "think", and right now, I am spending many, many hours every day writing and getting ready for the book release. I only tell you all this because if you don't hear from me, it’s possible I fell asleep! That happens alot if I overstress my brain....I just...conk out. Know that I willl be back as soon as I am able.”
Kristy’s emails often initiated with a bold faced warning to "...NOT READ UNTIL YOU FEEL UP TO IT", and she often expressed concern that the communication was too much to be good for me. Even so, although Kristy and K did talk “inside,” they were not always aware of each other’s whereabouts and doings and although Kristy was very respectful of both my time and energy, she was not always aware of just how much information K and I were exchanging (this was soon corrected by a folder system that Kristy—with K’s permission—initiated so that she could catch up on the email exchanges before contacting me). This helped lessen the number of emails substantially.
All the information and questions were coming in incredibly fast and it was impossible for me not to respond with equal rapidity. I had wondered for so many, many years what had become of this girl and I was both so horrified and drawn in by the information she was giving me, but I knew I needed to moderate my number of replies—for both our sake. Although K and Kristy seemed like two very distinct individuals, they still were coming from one body and this had to be exhausting for Kristy as well.
In my responses I was concentrating hard at not seeming therapeutic and I worried that I might not be able to hold the line as just a concerned and supportive individual in Kristy's life. I soon realized however that the utter compassion I felt and the kindness that I extended through caring words could not help but be somewhat therapeutic in their response. To make sure that no boundaries were crossed or inadvertent damage done, I got Kristy's permission to share the emails with her social worker so that a clear loop of communication was in place.
Following is an email sent in response to several of K's questions to me:
Hi!
Well my goodness, K, have you saved all these questions up for all this time???!!!!! Well, don't feel bad about asking so many of them--I did the same of Kristy when she first wrote!
Let's see…why was I in an accident? Well, not for any good reason that I can figure out! Actually, it happened on the way to work very, very early one morning...about 6:00 a.m. I was living in a real rural part of Utah then and was going to a meeting at a school quite far away...and I am not good with early morning driving because I am always sleepy in the morning. I am always most wide awake at night and usually I don't schedule meetings early and far away for this reason, but this was an unusual circumstance, so I agreed to it. It was on a Monday and I had to go to my office first to get stuff set up for the week, so I had to get up around four in the morning and be at my office by five so I could be on the road by 5:30.Unfortunately, I feel asleep driving there and rolled my truck. I didn't even hit my head, but because I was on cruise control at 55mph, the velocity of my brain slamming into my skull was quite intense. Not very smart of Ms. Sanders, was it??!!!
Yes, my dogs are big (well one is really big, one is actually kind of small by comparison) but both of them are very, very gentle. And neither one would have participated in anything like sex with a human person. Ever. Dogs have to be trained to do that, K and I am so sorry you experienced that.
Lets see...do I still work in schools? Not now, no. I did for a long, long time, but the head injury creates some problems that make it really hard...so although I do some training of teachers and counselors and I speak to groups who ask me to come talk to them, I am not working in a school like I used to do.
Am I married? Nope. I am on a solo ship on my own little sea and I have a really nice life, with wonderful friends and my two boys (that's what I call my dogs a lot of the time).I was married when you knew me, but we were divorced many years ago.
Hmmm...next...is...oh, is it bad to be mad at your parents? My own opinion on that is no, it is not bad at all...it is normal and healthy to be angry when someone doesn't treat you kindly or doesn't take care of you the way they are supposed to. Parents are supposed to protect their children, not hurt them or scare them or make them do things that are not healthy to their development. And K, I don’t think there is anything bad about you at all. I think the hardest part is over And you know what? I think the hardest part is behind you and such pain will never find its way into your life again.
As to my own parents, both have died, K, so I guess technically I don't have a mommy or daddy anymore. At least, not on this earth. But their spirits still are within me, so I kind of always feel like they are near me when I want or need them to be. Were they nice? In most ways they were, K. Like all people they each had their "issues" and sometimes those issues got in the way of their being good parents, but they were not abusive and they did not lock me up or frighten me or make me do things that would end up damaging my ability to trust people. I am grateful for that and wish it could have been so for you.
Yes, Kristy did tell me she is a lesbian and I think that’s great as long as she is in a relationship that is gentle and kind and that gives her support and love and that she can return the same to her partner. Most important to me about any relationship is that people treat each other with kindness and respect.
You know what makes me feel so happy inside, K? Hearing you say you love me in a good way...because that tells me that you know there are good kinds of loving in this world and that there is loving that doesn't hurt and that isn't confusing or full of drama.That there can be simply...loving someone. And believe me, there is nothing better, nothing healthier, nothing to treasure more than loving somebody (or a pet) in a good way and being loved back in the same sort of good way.
Know that you are cared for and loved back in that good way and not just by me, but by others as well.
Well, it’s almost 9:30 my time and I have tons to do before I go to sleep...so I better start doing it or I will be up wayyy too late. One thing about my life now is that I go to sleep a whole lot earlier than I used to. And I take naps too! As long as my brain gets a LOT of quiet time and rest, it does okay in most ways. So I shall say good night for now, K. Thanks for writing and talking with me. It’s so nice to "hear" your voice.
TTYL,
Love, Ms. Sanders
To my surprise, the following email showed up in my box at 6:30 in the morning:
I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE OR WHY YOU ARE TRYING TO CORRUPT K AGAINST OUR FATHER. HE WAS THE CHOSEN ONE TO GET TO SPEAK AND HEAR GOD. GOD TOLD HIM TO BREED AND PRODUCE FRUITS OF HIMSELF. K BROUGHT THE DEVIL INTO THE BABY SO GOD MADE HIM SACRIFICE IT. KNEEDS TO LEARN HOW TO HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER.
S.
Whoa. Holy Smokes, I thought. Now, who is this and what the heck does she mean by all this?
Before I responded, I definitely wanted to talk to Kristy. Could she just come up if called? I mean, if I sent her an email would she see it or would it go to this S. person first?
I’d worked with kids identified with more than one personality and in one case, I had worked with a boy who had a very violent, aggressive part that would surface and not be remembered later. My good friend is a functional “multiple,” and I have long been aware of her “others,” although I have never interacted with them personally. Still, even with these experiences in my background, I had a feeling that nothing in my personal or professional experience had prepared me for what was going on within Kristy.
Could I handle this or was I getting into something way too complex, way too disturbing and way too demanding for me to be involved in?
TBC. Read the conversation which soon transpired between S. and I as I find out about this particular "alter" or ("other" part)--the one who had assumed the religious fervor in their household and complied with all that was demanded, while silently holding tremendous anger and rage.
The emails continued to fly back and forth with a kind of frenetic intensity and within a week’s time nearly a hundred emails had been exchanged. K had so many questions for me: Did I still live in Alaska? Did I smoke? Did I have others that lived inside of me the way they do? Did I remember Ms. M, one of her favorite teachers? Did I know how old she was? The questions came in a flurry, as I suppose they would from a person who woke up to discover that fifteen years had passed in spite of the fact that to them, it had only been a few days.
K wanted to know if I still worked in schools; was I married, was it bad for her to be mad at her parents and was I scared of them like she was scared of them. She wanted to know if I was aware that her parents wanted to hurt me and did I have my own mommy and daddy and were they nice. And then on August 28, she writes that Kristy had showed her my website and that she does not “like big dogs daddy made one have sex with me now I scared of them.” She ended this particular email telling me she felt kind of weird and wondered, “am I asking to many questions well I better stop I love you in a good way K.”
The lack of punctuation and immature spelling came to be a trademark “K” characteristic and although Kristy did not use much punctuation (specifically, she never inserted question marks), she did write on a much higher level than K was writing and in a very different "voice."
If my head wasn’t spinning from the residual effects of the accident, it would have been spinning from the volume, intensity and content of these emails. I was grateful that I had gotten the sanction and support of her social worker, and wanted to make sure that nothing I said or mentioned would be in conflict with whatever therapy she was receiving. I was shocked and sickened by the information provided and in my worst nightmares had not imagined abuse of this magnitude. I did not want to express my outrage in a way that would trigger her or cause a defensive reaction, but I could not just ignore the information given to me.
Is it possible that such atrocities truly exist in this world…that people could be so cruel…so sick, so intentionally destructive of a child’s life? It was almost more than I could wrap my mind around and yet the context in which things were said sounded real,--not imagined and not made up. There was the ring of truth to the content of those emails, whether they were written by the nearly thirty year old Kristy or by K—who although was supposedly fourteen, really came across more like a six or seven year old in terms of her thinking and “speaking” abilities.
Quickly I found myself getting the stress-related headaches so common since the accident—the ones which came when my brain was simply overloaded with too much information, too much stimulation. The ones that produce a brain freeze that could shut me down without warning and send me into narcoleptic sleeping bouts that might last anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
Kristy, I discovered, was extremely sensitive to and concerned about me overtaxing my brain. I was enormously impressed by and fascinated by her own nurturing approach, not just to K and the “Littles” (as I was to learn she referred to the younger others), but to me as well. In an early email I had mentioned,
“I am struggling with a nasty headache today...partially from spending so much time on the computer the last few days, partially because that(as you probably know from working at the clinic) is just a function of a head injury. I always have to be careful with how much I "think", and right now, I am spending many, many hours every day writing and getting ready for the book release. I only tell you all this because if you don't hear from me, it’s possible I fell asleep! That happens alot if I overstress my brain....I just...conk out. Know that I willl be back as soon as I am able.”
Kristy’s emails often initiated with a bold faced warning to "...NOT READ UNTIL YOU FEEL UP TO IT", and she often expressed concern that the communication was too much to be good for me. Even so, although Kristy and K did talk “inside,” they were not always aware of each other’s whereabouts and doings and although Kristy was very respectful of both my time and energy, she was not always aware of just how much information K and I were exchanging (this was soon corrected by a folder system that Kristy—with K’s permission—initiated so that she could catch up on the email exchanges before contacting me). This helped lessen the number of emails substantially.
All the information and questions were coming in incredibly fast and it was impossible for me not to respond with equal rapidity. I had wondered for so many, many years what had become of this girl and I was both so horrified and drawn in by the information she was giving me, but I knew I needed to moderate my number of replies—for both our sake. Although K and Kristy seemed like two very distinct individuals, they still were coming from one body and this had to be exhausting for Kristy as well.
In my responses I was concentrating hard at not seeming therapeutic and I worried that I might not be able to hold the line as just a concerned and supportive individual in Kristy's life. I soon realized however that the utter compassion I felt and the kindness that I extended through caring words could not help but be somewhat therapeutic in their response. To make sure that no boundaries were crossed or inadvertent damage done, I got Kristy's permission to share the emails with her social worker so that a clear loop of communication was in place.
Following is an email sent in response to several of K's questions to me:
Hi!
Well my goodness, K, have you saved all these questions up for all this time???!!!!! Well, don't feel bad about asking so many of them--I did the same of Kristy when she first wrote!
Let's see…why was I in an accident? Well, not for any good reason that I can figure out! Actually, it happened on the way to work very, very early one morning...about 6:00 a.m. I was living in a real rural part of Utah then and was going to a meeting at a school quite far away...and I am not good with early morning driving because I am always sleepy in the morning. I am always most wide awake at night and usually I don't schedule meetings early and far away for this reason, but this was an unusual circumstance, so I agreed to it. It was on a Monday and I had to go to my office first to get stuff set up for the week, so I had to get up around four in the morning and be at my office by five so I could be on the road by 5:30.Unfortunately, I feel asleep driving there and rolled my truck. I didn't even hit my head, but because I was on cruise control at 55mph, the velocity of my brain slamming into my skull was quite intense. Not very smart of Ms. Sanders, was it??!!!
Yes, my dogs are big (well one is really big, one is actually kind of small by comparison) but both of them are very, very gentle. And neither one would have participated in anything like sex with a human person. Ever. Dogs have to be trained to do that, K and I am so sorry you experienced that.
Lets see...do I still work in schools? Not now, no. I did for a long, long time, but the head injury creates some problems that make it really hard...so although I do some training of teachers and counselors and I speak to groups who ask me to come talk to them, I am not working in a school like I used to do.
Am I married? Nope. I am on a solo ship on my own little sea and I have a really nice life, with wonderful friends and my two boys (that's what I call my dogs a lot of the time).I was married when you knew me, but we were divorced many years ago.
Hmmm...next...is...oh, is it bad to be mad at your parents? My own opinion on that is no, it is not bad at all...it is normal and healthy to be angry when someone doesn't treat you kindly or doesn't take care of you the way they are supposed to. Parents are supposed to protect their children, not hurt them or scare them or make them do things that are not healthy to their development. And K, I don’t think there is anything bad about you at all. I think the hardest part is over And you know what? I think the hardest part is behind you and such pain will never find its way into your life again.
As to my own parents, both have died, K, so I guess technically I don't have a mommy or daddy anymore. At least, not on this earth. But their spirits still are within me, so I kind of always feel like they are near me when I want or need them to be. Were they nice? In most ways they were, K. Like all people they each had their "issues" and sometimes those issues got in the way of their being good parents, but they were not abusive and they did not lock me up or frighten me or make me do things that would end up damaging my ability to trust people. I am grateful for that and wish it could have been so for you.
Yes, Kristy did tell me she is a lesbian and I think that’s great as long as she is in a relationship that is gentle and kind and that gives her support and love and that she can return the same to her partner. Most important to me about any relationship is that people treat each other with kindness and respect.
You know what makes me feel so happy inside, K? Hearing you say you love me in a good way...because that tells me that you know there are good kinds of loving in this world and that there is loving that doesn't hurt and that isn't confusing or full of drama.That there can be simply...loving someone. And believe me, there is nothing better, nothing healthier, nothing to treasure more than loving somebody (or a pet) in a good way and being loved back in the same sort of good way.
Know that you are cared for and loved back in that good way and not just by me, but by others as well.
Well, it’s almost 9:30 my time and I have tons to do before I go to sleep...so I better start doing it or I will be up wayyy too late. One thing about my life now is that I go to sleep a whole lot earlier than I used to. And I take naps too! As long as my brain gets a LOT of quiet time and rest, it does okay in most ways. So I shall say good night for now, K. Thanks for writing and talking with me. It’s so nice to "hear" your voice.
TTYL,
Love, Ms. Sanders
To my surprise, the following email showed up in my box at 6:30 in the morning:
I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE OR WHY YOU ARE TRYING TO CORRUPT K AGAINST OUR FATHER. HE WAS THE CHOSEN ONE TO GET TO SPEAK AND HEAR GOD. GOD TOLD HIM TO BREED AND PRODUCE FRUITS OF HIMSELF. K BROUGHT THE DEVIL INTO THE BABY SO GOD MADE HIM SACRIFICE IT. KNEEDS TO LEARN HOW TO HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER.
S.
Whoa. Holy Smokes, I thought. Now, who is this and what the heck does she mean by all this?
Before I responded, I definitely wanted to talk to Kristy. Could she just come up if called? I mean, if I sent her an email would she see it or would it go to this S. person first?
I’d worked with kids identified with more than one personality and in one case, I had worked with a boy who had a very violent, aggressive part that would surface and not be remembered later. My good friend is a functional “multiple,” and I have long been aware of her “others,” although I have never interacted with them personally. Still, even with these experiences in my background, I had a feeling that nothing in my personal or professional experience had prepared me for what was going on within Kristy.
Could I handle this or was I getting into something way too complex, way too disturbing and way too demanding for me to be involved in?
TBC. Read the conversation which soon transpired between S. and I as I find out about this particular "alter" or ("other" part)--the one who had assumed the religious fervor in their household and complied with all that was demanded, while silently holding tremendous anger and rage.
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